Fire Emblem: Operation Radiance
by Catastrophe90
Summary: Fire Emblem, but set in modern times. Just wanted to see how it would turn out.


**Author's Note: **

Heh. I was bored and was stuck when writing my other fic.

Also, Fire Emblem is not mine. As in, I do not own Fire Emblem.

_Prisoner Release_

"Your coffee sucks, Hans. I'm not drinking that crap." Corporal Michael Bynes was in a very bad mood. Night-time guard duty was pretty much the second worst assignment, beaten only by latrine cleaning. And it didn't help that none of the idiots under his command tonight were capable of making coffee that didn't taste like muddy water.

"I'm not your mother, asshole. Make your own goddamn coffee." Bynes glared at private first-class Hans Müller as the rest of his squad chuckled. That Müller kid was a handful. Rude and disrespectful towards authority, Bynes never understood how he had actually managed to serve a whole year without being court-marshalled into oblivion. But then, the Daein Army was pretty short on manpower right now. Although the common folks greeted their invaders with apathetic looks, Crimea still required a large permanent force stationed there to prevent the various small insurgencies from spreading like wildfire. This meant that, for the forseeable future, the Crimean Occupation Force would be a constant and massive drain on Daein's limited military resources. If it was up to Bynes, he would just burn this damn country to the ground and go back home.

"Don't take that tone with me, boy. Not unless you want to end up..." The corporal never got the occasion to finish his threat. His head was brutally yanked back before a knife slashed his neck, slicing the jugular artery and turning his world black. Simultaneously, more invisible assailants silently attacked the rest of the corporal's squad. After a brief struggle, their bodies too slumped to the ground, lifeless.

Mercenary captain Ike Hunter slowly lowered the corporal's corpse in the floor to avoid making any undesirable noise. After making sure that all four Daein soldiers were dead, he swiped a bundle of keys from the belt of the dead officer and unlocked the door of the Canteus Detention Center. Cautiously, he and the rest of his team made their way, undisturbed, to a small cafeteria coverted into a makeshift armory. It seemed that their intel was correct: the prison was indeed sorely undermanned for a facility of its size.

* * *

Under Crimean reign, the Canteus Detention Center housed Category C prisoners, individuals who, although not considered particularly dangerous to society, are still required to be confined under high security measures. After the Daein conquest, the facility retained its primary goal. The Crimean civil guards were replaced by Daein Army conscripts, while the cells contained prisoners of war instead of thieves, arsonists and other petty criminals. Many of these war prisoners were members of the former Crimean Royal Army, and were the main reason behind the presence of Ike and his Greil Mercenaries.

The Greil Mercenaries were currently in the employ of the last surviving member of the Crimean government, Elincia Riddell Crimea. After obtaining (unfortunately, only unofficial) endorsement by the neighbouring country of Gallia, Lady Elincia was now heading to Begnion, the largest and most powerful country on the continent, hoping to gain another ally against the Daein invaders. However, the Greil Mercenaries were a small group, too small to adequately protect their employer against the most powerful army in the world and thus decided to enlist some additional help by assaulting the Canteus prison.

Since this mission favoured stealth over brute force, Ike had decided to deploy only two four-man teams for the assault. His team, Strike Team Echo, would infiltrate the facility from the south-west, while Strike Team Foxtrot would enter from the south. Once inside, both teams would regroup in the cafeteria where Ike was presently.

* * *

"You've got to be kidding me. I thought Daein retired the old A2 rifles twelve years ago? They must really be scraping the sides of the jar right now…" The mercenaries' resident gun expert, Mia, was a new addition to the team. After being captured by the invading Daein forces, she was freed from captivity by Ike's late father during a raid on a Daein base. She then joined the Greil Mercenaries and her skills with an underslung grenade launcher have proven to be invaluable in dealing with the large groups of enemies they were matched up against. Also, in Ike's opinion, she was kind of cute. That may or may not have influenced her fast incorporation into the mercenary company.

"Damn it, we're two minutes behind schedule. Titania should have arrived by now. She's usually faster than us." The absence of the second group worried Ike. It wasn't like Titania to be late.

"Don't worry about her. She's an ex-Royal Marine. I doubt a handful of Daein greenhorns could even slow her down. And Oscar's with her too." Ike chuckled. Soren was right, as always. Ever since the formation of the mercenary company, Soren had served as his tactical advisor, and a darn good one at that. Cold and precise, whenever he came up with a battle strategy, every single detail, every single possiblity, no matter how small or trivial, was considered, carefully analysed and assigned a specific countermeasure or two. On the field of battle, he was also Ike's designated marksman. Although not as good as a trained sniper, Soren could still drop opponents half a kilometre away with ease with his marksmen rifle.

"Yeah, yeah, we all know how awesome Titania is. But still, man, maybe she's getting old? You never know…" Boyd, the middle one of three brothers all working for the Greil Mercenaries, was the team's automatic rifleman. Armed with a light machine gun, Boyd didn't have much in terms of subtlety, preferring to "spray and pray" rather than actually aiming, much to Soren and Titania's annoyance. Which is why he's the one that usually ends up lugging around everyone's extra ammunition and supplies.

"For your own sake, Boyd, you better hope Titania never hears that" commented Ike before raising his radio to his mouth. "Strike Team Foxtrot, how's it going on your side? We're waiting on you here."

'Strike Team Foxtrot here. Sorry Commander, we got slightly delayed. Daein had a few war dogs with them, but Ilyana took them down in a heatbeat. We'll be at the rendezvous point soon. ETA thirty seconds" answered the Greil Mercenaries' deputy commander. Ever since he was a child, Titania had always been her father's right-hand woman and a surrogate mother for the younger mercenaries. An ex-Crimean Royal Marine, she left the military in order to help his father found his mercenary company. Presently, she served as Ike's trusted tactical advisor and second-in-command.

"Dogs. I hate dogs." Every past experience Ike had with dogs ended badly. Every single one.

"Those Daein dogs were like pussycats compared to the ones in Shifu swamp." Titania's voice came simultaneously from Ike's radio speaker and his back. "Right behind you, Commander."

Ike briefly scanned the second team. None of them had any wounds, although it seemed that Oscar's right cheek had been grazed by a bullet. Much like Titania, Oscar was once part of the Crimean Royal Marines as a corporal. However, due to his premature mother's death, he dropped his promising military career in order to take care of his two younger brothers, Boyd and Rolf. His service in the armed forces had left him disappointed; instead of the action-packed adrenaline-pumping life popular culture had led him to expect, he was instead greeted with a one filled with repetitive exercises and meaningless salutes. This often causes friction with Rolf, the youngest of the three brothers, who wished to enlist in what used to be the Crimean Army as soon as he was old enough, much to his older brother's dismay. As for now, Oscar hopes that the horror of the ongoing war will help persuade his sibling from making the same mistakes he did and to pursue a more peaceful path in life instead.

Of all the mercenaries engaged in active combat, Rhys seemed like the most out of place. A thin and sickly man, Rhys struggled to move under the weight of his equipment and would most likely pass out from exhaustion if Ike ever asked him to carry a weapon larger than a handgun. Nevertheless, as the company's medical officer, Rhys does more than merely carry his (metaphorical) weight in battle. Or at least when he's not having one of his frequent asthma attacks.

The last deployed foot soldier of the mercenary strike force was Ilyana. Like all Daein youth, she did her compulsory military service in Daein. There, her remarkable marksman skills had her marked as a possible candidate for sniper training. Unfortunately, her poor eyesight and skinny constitution never allowed her to progress beyond the role of designated marksman (or is it designated markswoman?) and eventually had her dismissed from military service as a whole. After that, she began working as a bodyguard for a group of traveling merchants. Captured and imprisoned by her former Daein comrades-in-arms during the Crimean invasion, Ilyana, along with the rest of the merchant group, were saved by the Greil Mercenaries and have been providing them with provisions, weapons and ammunition, medical supplies and, in Ilyana's case, deadly support fire.

"Good. Let's roll, mercenaries. Those prisoners aren't going to free themselves."

* * *

The mercenaries slowly advanced towards the western wing, where the great majority of the prisoners were held. Ike, Boyd and Mia formed the vanguard, each covering the other's advance. Behind them was Rhys, flanked by Ilyana and Soren. Titania and Oscar closed the march and covered the rest of the team's backs.

"Strange, we're nearly at the western prisoner wing, and we've had yet to meet a single guard other than the ones outside."

"We know that the Daein Army is really stretched thin right now across Crimea, Soren. It makes sense that they don't have the personnel to man the whole facility" reasoned Titania. "That's most likely the reason why they've concentrated all the prisoners in a single wing; that way, they have less area to patrol."

"Boss, we've got movement on our left." Instantly after hearing Mia's warning, all mercenaries had jumped into cover, weapons pointed at the left hallway. However, instead of gunfire, all that came through said hallway was a lone man. From his belt dangled a few grenades, a sheathed knife and a pistol holster, and an H&K UMP was strapped on his back. He wore a black lightweight ballistic vest over a black shirt and pants. The majority of his face was hidden behind a brown handkerchief and a headband of the same color; the only things that could be discerned were a pair of cold brown eyes and strands of unkept brown hair.

"Peace." The unknown individual raised both of his hands above his head, showing that he meant no harm to the mercenaries. "I have business with Sir Greil Hunter. Where is he?"

"Dead." Ike had no patience to deal with the shady man. Either he was on their side, either he wasn't. People who weren't had the nasty habit of dying.

"Well then. That's a problem." The man passed his hand on his chin, seemingly annoyed.

"Just who are you, anyway?"

"Call me Volke. Sir Greil hired me. I'm in intelligence."

"What did my father hire you for?"

"So you're Sir Greil's son? Heh, you'll do. Pay my price and I'll hand over the report I have for him. Deal?"

"How much?"

"One million."

"I could get a tank for that price."

"My report's much more valuable than pile of scrap metal on threads."

"Do you honestly think that I just walk around with one million credits on me?"

"No, I don't. Are you still interested in our deal?"

"Yeah. I trust my old man's judgment enough to want to see that report."

"Good. Catch." Volke threw a cell phone to Ike. "When you've got the credits, call me on the number saved on this phone. You'll get the report when I get the money. I'm not waiting around until then." Volke turned around and began to leave.

"Wait! You said that you were in intelligence, right? Is information the only thing you sell?" Ike raised an eyebrow. What was Soren planning?

"Come out with it, kid. What do you want?"

"Hacking. We need someone to hack into the prison's central system and open all the cells. It would be faster and less messy than our initial plan of blowing the cells doors out."

"Sure. Two thousand credits."

"Are you sure about this?" Titania objected. She turned to Ike. "We've just met him. We can't trust him yet."

Ike was in deep thought. On one hand, Titania was correct. With the death of his father, no one was able to confirm Volke's story. Lady Elincia currently had many enemies, meaning that she most likely had plenty of assassins gunning for her head, and add to that the possibility of Volke being an agent at Daein service. However, Soren did have a point too. The mercenaries lacked specialized breaching charges to take down the cell doors; the plan was to use plain old C4 explosives. These could potentially be dangerous to the captives inside the cells during the breaching process. Having someone who could tap into the prison's mainframe computer and electronically open all the cells would be a much safer plan.

"Ok Volke," Ike answered after a minute of reflection, "You're in. Titania, Rhys, escort Volke to the main command room. Prepare to open the cell doors at my command. The rest of you, follow me. We're going to make sure that there'll be no one to shoot the prisoners when they're liberated. After that, everyone regroup at this location. Mercenaries, move out!"

* * *

"Ok guys, so here's how it is." Ike gathered his forces for a quick briefing before the assault. "The cells containing our targets are located along these two parallel corridors. If we sweep them one at a time, the guards in the second hallway will have the time to alert the rest of the personnel and we'll be in deep trouble. So we're going to split up. Soren, take Boyd and Oscar with you and clear out the right corridor. Mia, Ilyana and I are going to tackle the left one. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I got one Ike. Why do you and Mia always end up in the same team?"

"Because shut up Boyd. Any _smart_ questions? No?" Ike turned on his radio. "Titania? How's the situation up there?"

"All is well." was the reply. "Our new friend's working his magic on the central computer as we speak."

"Excellent. Keep in touch." Ike turned to face his teammates. "Let's…"

Unfortunately for the mercenaries, it was around then that the Daein forces had found what remained of their two missing lookout teams. The alarm immediately started shrieking, and red light flooded the corridors, waking up everybody in the facility, guardsmen and prisoners alike.

"Well, drat. Looks like we'll do this the hard way. Stick to the plan. GO!"

Ike sprinted to the door leading to the right corridor and took cover behind the doorframe. He then took a quick look and, seeing that the two guards hadn't noticed them yet, distracted by the screeching alarms, and quickly cut them down with two short bursts from his assault rifle.

"Titania!" He yelled into his radio, "Get those cells open NOW!"

Mere moments after, the cell doors flew open. However, what Ike saw next was not a frantic mob of prisoners running towards him. Instead, a thin young girl with light blue hair stumbled from one of the cells, while a priest from the Church of Ashera cautiously peeked out of another. The other cells were empty. Ike ran to the young girl and supported her up, guiding her towards the exit. Ilyana gestured to the priest to head for the way out, and, with an understanding nod, the priest hastefully complied. Mia kept both her eyes and rifle pointed towards the corridor's other end.

"What's going on here? Where are all the other prisoners?" Ike was getting very anxious. This was looking more and more like a trap of some sort.

"I… I dunno… The guards... They just dragged a few of them away each day… They never brought them back…" The pale girl looked like she was about to faint. Ike guessed the she hadn't had too much to eat in the last few days.

"Wait… You mean that they killed the prisoners of war? Isn't that against the Goldoa Convention?"

"...Convention? I'm just a country gal. I ain't good with all that politics stuff."

"Boss? You might want to walk a tad faster. We've got company." Ike took a look behind him and saw a bunch of what seemed to be a mob of moving barrels. Ballistic shields. This was very bad. He could hear the buzzing sound of Boyd's machine gun firing in the other hallway. The guards had mobilized pretty fast.

"Mia, get some grenades over there to slow them down. Ilyana, see if you can pick some out. And miss whatever-your-name-is, I'm afraid we're going to have to run because, if we don't, we'll be seven different kinds of screwed."

"Actually Boss, the Daein Army only uses four different cartridge types. So you'll only be four different kinds of screwed."

"Mia, I'm not hearing the delightful sound of exploding frags right now."

"I'm on that, Boss."

The first grenade hit an opponent dead center on a shield. Although his shield protected the Daein soldier from the deadly shrapnel, the force of the explosion knocked him down. Sadly for him, his head was exposed for a few seconds when he fell from the impact, and it was all that Ilyana needed to send a bullet barrelling through his brain. Cautious, the Daein soldiers scurried to form proper ranks, presenting to the mercenaries a wall of shields impenetrable to rifle fire. Ike used this temporary lull in the action to haul the young woman on her shoulder and run through the doorway of the corridor, followed by Ilyana and Mia. The priest was already waiting for them, silently muttering a prayer. Seconds later, Soren, Boyd and one of the surviving captives came through from the second corridor. Finally, Oscar crossed the door, dragging along him a vociferating prisoner holding a looted M16.

"LET ME GO OSCAR! LET ME SHOW THOSE DAEIN DOGS THE MIGHT OF CRIMEAN ROYAL MARINES FIFTH BATTALION CAPTAIN KIERAN ARMSTRONG! SEE ME AND TREMBLE, DAEIN WRETCHES!"

"Everyone, head to extraction point two. I'm getting Marcia to evacuate us by air. Soren, Ilyana, take point. Time to get out of here! And Oscar? What the hell is wrong with this guy?" Gunfire was noisy enough. The last thing Ike needed was some weirdo yelling right beside his ear.

"There's nothing wrong with him. He's always like this. I used to be in his platoon when I was in the Royal Marines. He's… unique."

"Oh for Ashera's sake… Hey, you! Keiran! You want to do something really noble? Carry this weakened damsel in distress for me. She could use a strong and brave Royal Marine to carry her to safety."

"Yes! Although glorious combat is our way of life, one must not forget that we Royal Marines serve above all the citizenry of beautiful Crimea! Come, young lady, and allow Crimean Royal Marines Fifth Battalion Captain Kieran Armstrong to be your shield against those despicable Daein scoundrels!" bellowed the man before lifting the bewildered blue-haired girl in his arms and running after Soren and Ilyana.

"Some of you Royal Marines are really screwed up you know? Anyways," said a tired Ike while reaching for his radio and turning it on, "Titania, shut the doors in the area except the ones we need to get out of this place. That should slow them down and buy us some time. Then hightail it out of there and head to extraction point two. Contact Marcia and have her ready to pull us out. I think we can all fit into a single chopper."

"Roger. Sealing doors and moving out."

* * *

Oscar and Ike formed the rearguard of the retreating mercenary column. Luckily, their escape went unhindered as the Daein troops struggled to re-gain control of the doors of the western wing (Ike would learn after that Titania had smashed the main control room's command interface before leaving). Soon, they were out of the detention center and at extraction point two, between the prison and its neighbouring forest.

"Marcia!" Ike roared into his radio. "Where the hell are you?"

"A few seconds away, handsome. Good gravy, from up here, it looks like the whole facility is trying to kill you!" Ike groaned. Marcia and her stupid food-referencing speech. Can't she just say "holy shit" like everyone else? She is one hell of a pilot though, being from the Begnion Holy Guard and all that.

"Tell me something I don't know! Just pick us up!"

The NH90 transport helicopter soon emerged from the forest line and landed in a whirl of dead leaves. Ike kept watch as the mercenaries and the liberated prisoners climbed into the aircraft before entering himself, sliding the door shut behind him. With a loud rumbling sound, the transport helicopter lifted itself up from the grassy earth and headed towards a temporary encampment located a few kilometres from there.

"Everyone's exhausted." Ike pried his eyes off the side window and looked around in the helicopter. Unsurprisingly, the only ones still awake were him and Titania, as night missions were very hard on everyone. Oscar was sleeping with rifle in hand, ready to pounce back in action at moment's notice. Rhys had his backpack on his lap and was using it as a pillow. Boyd was snoring loudly. Mia had her head on his shoulder. Funny how Mia always ended up sitting next to him.

"Can't blame them. I'm on the edge of dozing of myself."

"Go on. It was one rough ride down there. A shame we didn't get much out of it."

"Hey, come on. We've got Crimean Royal Marines Fifth Battalion Captain Kieran Armstrong on our side now."the mercenary commander answered, mimicking the Royal Marine's pompous speech.

"That flailing idiot is a Royal Marine?"

"Apparently."

"I... don't know what to say to that... Let's deal with it tomorrow."

"Yeah. Good idea." Ike's eyes were slowly closing by themselves at this point. "Tomorrow…"

**Author's Note: **

I'm pretty sure most of you have realized that this was a modernized version of Path of Radiance's Chapter 10 (heh, I even titled it "Prisoner Release"). Why did I choose Chapter 10 instead of any other chapter? Because... I don't know. I felt like choosing Chapter 10.

Yeah, I know, Lethe and Mordecai don't appear. It's just that I had no idea what to do with Laguz in general. Transforming into a tiger or a hawk just isn't that useful when you're up against rifles, tanks and jet fighters.

As always, please leave a review. I don't mind being criticized, harshly or not. Just leave something. It tells me that someone read the whole story instead of skimming the first few paragraphs, and it makes me feel better (also, it makes more want to write more).


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